Category: Taxes

“Some low-wage employers are moving toward hiring part-time workers instead of full-time ones to mitigate the health-care overhaul’s requirement that large companies provide health insurance for full-time workers or pay a fee. Several restaurants, hotels and retailers have started or are preparing to limit schedules of hourly workers to below 30 hours a week.”

“A Cigna Corp. executive said Thursday that taxes on the health insurance industry related to the Affordable Care Act, or federal health care reform, will be pushed onto customers in the form of higher premiums. Cigna’s Chief Financial Officer Ralph J. Nicoletti responded to a question about the taxes during a conference call with financial analysts Thursday morning when the Bloomfield-based health insurer reported third-quarter earnings.”

“In just 14 months, Americans will be required to prove that they have federally “qualified” health insurance or face an Obamacare tax of $695 to $2,085. That is unless you are in prison, below the poverty line, or are an undocumented immigrant, according to the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform.”

“Republicans on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee threatened to issue subpoenas if the IRS doesn’t turn over more records about how it’s implementing the law’s insurance subsidies. Republicans believe the IRS is planning to hand out billions of dollars in subsidies that aren’t authorized by the healthcare law.”

“President Obama likes to say his campaign is about building up the middle class, but his signature initiative in office — ObamaCare — will pile thousands of dollars in new taxes and higher health costs on top of America’s middle class. How so? Through redistribution, of course. The president has made no secret of his fondness for using the government’s tax and spending powers to spread our diminished wealth around from one group of Americans to another. And ObamaCare is nothing if not a massive redistribution machine.”

“The rule in question concerns the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s tax credits, not the law’s tax increases. The tax credits are intended to offset the cost of insurance premiums for low- and middle-income workers. For many Americans, however, those tax credits are like an anchor disguised as a life vest. The mere fact that a taxpayer is eligible for a tax credit can trigger tax liabilities against both the taxpayer (under the act’s ‘individual mandate’) and her employer (under the ’employer mandate’).”

“The Health Insurance Tax (HIT) on fully-insured premium markets imposed by Obamacare could raise $87 billion over the next ten years and also cost between 125,000 and 249,000 jobs by 2021, according to a study.”

“Even as the new health care law adds millions of insured customers to the paying pool, medical device manufacturers say a tax on their product could cost them billions… But the manufacturers say the tax will force money away from research, send jobs overseas and stop them from expanding in the U.S.”

“According to CBO, 11-12 million uninsured Americans will be subject to the mandate; the agency expects more than half of them to pay the fine instead of buying insurance. But there’s something that the CBO didn’t say: as more people pay the ‘tax penalty’ instead of buying insurance, premiums for everyone else will go up, potentially triggering a death spiral in the private insurance market.”

“Nearly six million Americans, most of them middle-income workers, will face a tax penalty under President Obama’s health overhaul for not getting insurance, Congressional analysts said Wednesday. That estimate, from analysts at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, is significantly higher than their previous projection, calculated in 2010 shortly after the law passed.”